Pregnant women unmoved by maternity hospital ratings, study suggests

Media reports naming the best and worst NHS trusts for maternity care did not lead to more women going to the top hospitals, a study has found. The NHS Constitution states that providing information to support patient choice is a major priority for driving improvement in services. The new study casts doubt on this principle, finding that widely publicised patient survey results listing the 10 best and worst performing NHS trusts in England in 2008 did not lead to more women attending the high-ranked hospitals or fewer attending low-ranked hospitals. The study also found that satisfaction levels did not improve more quickly at hospitals named as the 10 worst compared with others with similar satisfaction levels at the start, suggesting that high-profile public reporting may not have stimulated improvements in care. The research is published in the Journal of Health Services Research & Policy . Dr Anthony Laverty from the School of Public Health at Imperial College London, who led the study, said: "The NHS and other health systems are increasingly trying to provide about hospitals' performance on the basis that letting patients make informed choices about where they go for their care will improve standards. The evidence for this is patchy, and mainly comes from cardiac surgery in the US.